Alan Caruba's blog is a daily look at events, personalities, and issues from an independent point of view. Copyright, Alan Caruba, 2015. With attribution, posts may be shared. A permission request is welcome. Email acaruba@aol.com.

Sunday, July 7, 2013

Obamacare Extortion and Exploitation

By Alan
Caruba

As
scandals go, it was one of those lessor ones we have become accustomed to
hearing about regarding the Obama administration’s preference for strong-arm
tactics and an utter disregard for either ethics or the law.

At a June
hearing of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, Health and Human
Services (HHS) Secretary, Kathleen Sebelius, was asked if she saw any ethical
or legal problem when she asked two major organizations, the philanthropic
Robert Wood Johnson Foundation—funded by its Johnson & Johnson stock—and H&R
Block to donate to Enroll America, a non-profit set up by Obama’s former
campaign backers; the purpose being to underwrite a campaign to gain support
for the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act otherwise known as
Obamacare.

According
to an article in The Washington Times, “Ms. Sebelius said she never asked for
money from entities that are regulated by her agency, but she did speak to
three of them—multinational medical products company Johnson & Johnson,
Catholic health system Ascension health, and non-profit insurance firm Keiser
Permanente—on a more general basis about the Enroll America’s efforts to
promote the Affordable Care Act.”

When you
get a call from the HHS Secretary, you know she wants you to either do or not
do something. In a World Net Daily article by Jack Minor, he reported that “
Just weeks ago, the administration told insurance companies they would be
required to send letters to all policy holders, including those not receiving
rebates, talking about the benefits of Obamacare.”

Minor
noted that “Many polls reveal Americans solidly against the law, and some
analysts believe the Supreme Court, which is reviewing a key component of it,
might strike it down.” That would be good news for everyone, but for now the
Obama administration is prepared to spend $20 million of taxpayer money to
promote it.

HHS’s
Center for Medicare and Medicare Services recently signed a $20 million dollar
contract with the public relations firm, Porter Novelli, to promote Obamacare.

Asking
companies and other entities that have a stake in the health care marketplace
to make a “donation” has the whiff of extortion to it and ordering insurance
companies to not tell their customers that their rates will go up thanks to
Obamacare smacks of deception.

This fits
in perfectly with the way Obamacare was passed in 2009 when all manner of
pressure and political bribes were used to secure the vote. Famously, then
House Majority Leader, Nancy Pelosi, told reporters that they had to pass it
“in order to find out what was in it.” Since then we have discovered it was
comparable to receiving a bag of snakes for your birthday.

Benjamin
Domenech, the managing editor of The Heartland Institute’s Health Care News,
reported that former White House chief ethics counsel, Richard Painter, said
that the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s large investment in Johnson &
Johnson, “a company under Sebelius’ purview, makes the foundation a ‘prohibited
source’ that she cannot solicit money from under government ethics rules.”

HHS,
however, isn’t content to spend $20 million on a public relations campaign.
They have reached out to the commissioners of the National Football League and
National Basketball Association to promote Obamacare. Rep. Steve Scalise (R-LA)
sent a letter to commissioners Roger Goodell and David Stern asking for further
details about the HHS request.

“Considering
the recent investigations,” said Rep. Scalise, “into reports that Secretary
Sebelius has blurred ethical lines by soliciting donations from businesses with
matters before her agency in order to help promote components of President
Obama’s health care law, there is a disturbing pattern by the Obama
Administration to inappropriately solicit support for their policies by
entitles that they oversee and regulate.” He wanted to know if either the NFL or
NBA had been asked to contribute funds or in-kind services to any third-party
organization.

Not
content to strong-arm those involved with the healthcare or insurance
industries, it has recently been reported that the Los Angeles Unified School
District will use a state grant to train teenagers to promote Obamacare to family members. On May 14, Covered California, the state’s health insurance
exchange, announced grants of $37 million to promote the unpopular law.

Using the
young members of families to “educate” their parents and older relatives to
support Obamacare is a classic example of authoritarian governments, past and
present, to exert influence beyond highly funded public relations programs. It
smacks of desperation. And exploitation.

The
administration has cause for desperation. In late June, a Gallup poll showed
that 52% of Americans disapprove of Obamacare, compared to 44% who approve of
it. An increasing number of Americans, as they become more aware of the law’s
impact on their lives, are lining up against it.

The
decision to put off implementing elements of Obamacare throughout 2014 is an
effort to keep the growing opposition to Obamacare during the year of the next
midterm elections from costing Democrats losses. And where does Obama get the
power to decide what parts of this or any other legislation he will enforce or
ignore? A law is a law. You don't get to choose what you will enforce or not.

Commenting
on the delay, Domenech said the decision was
“nothing more than a craven admission that he (Obama) knows how unworkable his
health policy overhaul is…he just doesn’t want to suffer the political
consequences for it while in office.”

Writing in
a June 28 opinion, published in The Washington Times, Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY)
said that “In addition to potentially causing upward of 20 million Americans to
lose their private health insurance policies, it could destroy an estimated
800,00 jobs…A year after the Supreme Court ruled in favor of Obamacare, its
full, disastrous impact still looms ahead.”

About Me

I am and have been for a long time a writer by profession. I have several books to my credit and my daily column, "Warning Signs", is disseminated on many Internet news and opinion websites, as well as blogs. In addition, I am a longtime book reviewer and have a blog offering a monthly report on new fiction and non-fiction.